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| Monday, October 11, 2004 The sun decided to finally reemerge today. After long, miserable days of gray skies, and continuous rain I welcomed its bright, natural light, and gleefully fled from my usual surroundings. Didn’t do much really, just tanked up the Bourbon, which is my evil nickname for my GMC Suburban. Stopped at the infamous tobacco store and purchased three cartoons of cigarettes just in case the weather decides to get ugly and wet again anytime soon. I took myself to I Hop for brunch. Service sort of sucks, but I see that the waitress is making an effort. I remember when I used to wait tables, and it is not like I am at a five star restaurant so I don’t take offense. I stopped at Walgreen’s to pick up some prescription refills, and see if they have a record of the Vioxx that I was taking in 2001 when I ended up in the hospital with multiple pulmonary embolisms and the doctors had no clue as to why. So I called a law office in New Orleans to try to get me a piece of that pie that I’ll probably be dead by the time it’s divided up. Oh well! Finally, we have the two Olympic Decathlon events that we have been waiting for, neither of which I am feeling particular inspired about at this very moment. I have time, and I like to give it as much thought as possible before I just jump. I really want to win, or if I can’t at least do the very best I can. I am amazed at how fast some Olympians have already written and placed entries. Whew, I am just not that quick. I can’t believe it is already October 11th; time seems to just be flying by. It is almost scary. Seems like when my boys were here eating me out of house and home, and annoying the dickens out of me, TIME dragged. I am still learning not to cook so much food. I am so use to no matter how much I cooked that it seemed like it was never enough; now I am throwing leftovers away. Everything is just different. It is an adjustment. The adage, “Old habits die hard.” is more true than I ever realized. I am still buying food in too large a quantity, as well as cooking too much for just my husband and me. It’s wasteful. Stargate has reruns, and not the good ones. When I finish this day’s entry, I will go watch Law and Order with my husband. My eyes need a rest. I have been writing reviews most of the day. I am still amazed by how many gift points that I can earn. I am going to go look up what a one-year basic membership costs in gift points, and then probably do some kind of essay about how members can earn their own keep with just a little effort. Probably won’t be popular. Maybe, I’ll just leave things alone, if everybody jumps on the feed wagon it will probably get overloaded and collapse then there won’t be any for anybody. That’s a stretch. Talk about finding a reason NOT to write. Ha! Made my word count. I’m outta here. |
| Sunday, October 10th, 2004 My husband decided to come home from work today. I was delighted, but shocked. I have been explaining to him for years that working seven days a week is not only not good for him, it is un-American. He has no clue what I am talking about, because he spent too many years in the military, and most of that time out to sea on one very big boat or another. (I know their not called boats; I just call them that because it makes my husband crazy. Now that we understand each other, I’ll get back to my story.) The real point is my husband is not good at being a civilian. I have actually had to teach him how to slouch. He automatically stands at ATTENTION, until I whisper AT EASE Sailor. I love this man. I love what he stands for, and I hope I have 100 years to try to teach him to be a good civilian. I don’t think that I’ll have much luck, but I sure would enjoy trying. The United States Military has rules for absolutely everything. And they have personnel that records and writes these rules down including the definitions and interpretations, and another group that publishes these rules, along with all the frequent changes. The problem for my husband is he is looking for the civilian equivalent of a Military Rule Book. I wish I’d have had a camera when I finally got him to understand that there are no rules for civilians; that that is what FREEDOM is all about. In my opinion, the military spoiled my husband almost to the point of ruining the man. Yes, I said spoiled. They made too many decisions for him. They told him what to wear, when to wear it, as well as where to wear what and when. So my husband is basically addicted to uniforms. One day I told the man to go get dressed and after about 30 minutes I went looking for him. There he stood in the middle of our bedroom floor in his skivvies still trying to figure out what he SHOULD wear. It was so sad it was hysterical. I asked him, “Hon, what do you want to wear?” “I don’t know, what am I suppose to wear?” Now, I have a stack of matching Civilian clothes from which he can chose as needed. I have been writing him a Civilian Rule Book ever since. Actually it is a hysterical Retirement Manual for Old Sea Dogs, and my dear husband is my research project. Of course he doesn’t know that either. Shhhhh! Don’t tell him. I have learned the Military really may know what their doing. If they don’t need to know, then just don’t tell them. It works for me. Had fun cooking today. I cooked Chili, which is part of what I call my “MAN-FOOD Repertoire”. I will share another secret I have learned about being married to a man that was in the United States Military too long – they’d eat anything. The way to their heart is NOT through their stomach, as I believe the military killed almost every last taste bud they ever had. I’ve met my word count and I don’t want to bore anybody longer than is necessary, so until tomorrow, I remain, The Critic |
| Saturday, October 9th, 2004 I have given away millions of gift points on Writing.Com. I absolutely do it for my own pleasure. Some were given because a writer amused or amazed me, other times gift points were given because a writer touched my heart, or made me cry, especially if a writer made me cry. Sometimes I gave gift points just to make another person say, “Whoa!” I love gift points. Gift points provided me with the very first opportunity to ever own a MILLION of anything, especially a MILLION of something my children couldn’t get their hands on, or weasel out of me. I really like that. Then I began to notice all the different charities set up to help Writing.Com members with upgrades and such. I couldn’t understand why so many members needed help when so many opportunities exist to make your own way on Writing.Com. Let me “Show instead of tell”, as I am so often reminded to do by so many other Dear Writer’s on Writing.Com. Today, I earned a grand total of 5,400 Gift points. Granted, I don’t do that well everyday, but often enough that I realize that everybody else could with a minimum of effort. So, you ask, “How did I earn 5,400 gift points?” I did four auto-award reviews worth 375 gift points, one auto-award review worth 300 gift points, one auto-award review worth 500 gift points, and since the Writing.Com Review Mixer is giving double gift points from October 8th through 31st, I earned 500 more gift points for reviewing members I had never reviewed before. I also earned 2,500 gift points for an Honorable Mention in the Dynamic Dialogue Contest. If I can earn gift points like this, why not everybody else? In a way, I am in the hole with the Dynamic Dialogue Contest, because I donated over 12,000 gift points in a sort of bet "ON" myself. I actually thought I could win. Damn! Considering the competition, I am extremely lucky to have even placed. I got to stop that betting thing I got going on "ON" myself. Gambling never pays off – NEVER! Anyway, my point is that I use to donate to many of these groups that help people keep their memberships until I applied Scripture to the matter. Yep, the Bible says, “The poor will always be with you.” I don’t think it actually says anywhere in the Bible, “God helps those that helps themselves.” But in my humble opinion, it should. People can argue that I have the time to do the reviews for auto-awards. Well, the minimum requirement is 250 words, and usually my minimum review is between 1200 and 2500 words, sometimes more depending on what the author wrote. I EARN my auto-awards, oh, and I forgot to mention that one of the authors sent me an additional 100 gift points to add to what he already auto-awarded me. I am also in a contest this month where the top prize is over 1,000,000 gift points, and that is in addition to the Olympic Decathlon. Have I told y’all how much I value my membership on Writing.Com? I did mention that I love giving gift points away, didn’t I? Well, I got to have them to give them. And what do I get out of all of this? My writing is improving to the point that I have been submitting work to magazines that just might pay me REAL money if my submissions are accepted for publication. I believe it could happen – if I live long enough. |
| October 8th, 2004 I would much rather wait until the end of every day to make my daily journal entries, but the problem with doing this is I find that I am exhausted and the words end up strained, and only put in my journal for the sake of meeting the word count requirement. So, here I am at 1:54 in the afternoon trying to outwit my physical short comings, and it seems to me that I have been fighting that losing battle all of my life. Talking about losing battles, I listened to an interesting infomercial last night, while I was somewhere between being half awake and sound asleep. It was about a book titled, “Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About.” The author, Kevin Trudeau, claimed that the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, tried to have vitamin C classified as a drug. He went on to claim that food manufacturers put a type of additive into food to make people hungrier, therefore making people eat more, and it contributes to the American obesity problem. Being as basically paranoid as I am, I have a real tendency to believe this author. Along with his list of believable statements: There more overweight people now. Many countries have lower obesity levels than the U.S. Other countries won’t eat our dairy and meat products. We can't export our food products. His book claims to normally sell for $39.95, but if I order it TODAY it is ONLY $29.95. His website has a notation that states: Due to the nature and opinion expressed in informational products…blah…blah…blah, these are non-returnable. All sales are final, no exceptions. Now, I have mentioned that I am a paranoid type personality, right? The aforementioned notation immediately makes me think that he thinks that I will want to return his book, tapes, CD’s, or whatever very shortly after receiving them, and he knows this. Hence, his need to say, “NON-RETURNABLE. ALL SALES FINAL, NO EXCEPTIONS.” Every wonder what paranoid people GOOGLE? Try: “What they don’t want you to know”. That produces some very interesting results. It actually produces news results that are not in the main stream, as well as content that supports a theory for a book I am working on about September 11, 2001 and how that all came about happening in the first place. When I ran my plot and theory by a friend of mind, she was horrified. She told me that I could not write what I had proposed. The wounds were still too fresh. My theory was too unimaginable. People would hate me for even thinking such, much less writing such things. Then I reminded her that I am not a ever published or widely read author, and she said that if I wrote such garbage that I never would be. OUCH! That really hurt. Is it possible that I am really crazy? Aren’t we all, some more than others? I am going to write my insane, paranoid conspiracy theory for NaNoWriMo in November. In the meantime, I am getting it organized in my head, collecting research, and laying the necessary groundwork. I suspect the work should end up being about 100,000 words, and I don’t have a working title yet. I really should, I’ve only been thinking about this for three freaking years. Could it be? The worse possible scenario imaginable could it be a fictional reality - YES. |
| October 7th, 2004 I ended up writing and reading all day long. The thing about that is I almost forgot to do this entry. Once again, I find myself exhausted, and so far beyond hungry that I plan to eat the fastest food I can fix for myself for dinner. Here goes more PB&J. Good thing that I like it. I got my Pantoum entry for the train contest done and posted in the forum today. Good thing to since tomorrow is the deadline. I also finished a short story that I had been writing for member Steve Ellen’s, “Work This Plot” contest. I also enter this In & Out called, “Black & White”. It is a set up like that children’s word game where somebody says a word, and the next person says the first word that POPS into their head. Silly, I know, but at least it is not a contest, and there is no pressure. I am so worried about the Olympic Relay Campfire. I guess if we screw it up there is time to do another one. I am so tempted to write all five parts myself, send it all to the other members and say, “Post your part when I so instruct you to do so.” Alas, I feel like that would be cheating. Knowing myself well enough I would get no enjoyment from a contest that I cheated in. Have I mentioned that I was raised by herds of Catholic Nuns? Absolutely true! And when enough of the Habit wearing women got together it really did look like a herd of very large Penguins. The whole point is that Nuns are masters at instilling guilt. I don’t know if they are all highly skilled at instilling guilt before they took their vows, or it is something their Order teaches. Either way, they are all very, very good at it. I still have guilt over lying to the Priest in the Confessional. The Nuns made sure that we all went to Confession weekly. I just didn’t think Father would buy it if I swore that I had nothing to confess, so I would make stuff up. And that sacred secrecy guarantee surrounding the Priest and Vows of never divulging Confessional stuff is bunk, too. I can’t tell y’all how many times I got in trouble for stuff I lied about in the Confessional. When I realized what was going on, do any of y’all think I was smart enough to stop making stuff up? Absolutely NOT, because I knew the Priest was ratting me out, I made up even worse stuff to lie about. To this day, I don’t think they understood what I was doing. I do know that the Nuns use to give demerits. It took 50 demerits to lose an outing. Well, I finally figured out that by demerit count that they would have had to ground me for life, and I won because they couldn’t make me stay pass eighteen years of age. These are really old memories, and I am shocked that I even remember. Strange what exhaustion and hunger will do to a body’s mind? Well, I’ve met my word count for today, for what it’s worth. So I am out of here. Sincerely, The Critic |
| October 6th, 2004 Well, I am not going to allow myself a late entry again. I am really angry with myself for missing the deadline. I have excuses, but no good reason; not even one. I am not going to let myself off the hook for this. It is simply inexcusable. Since I fell asleep during the Vice Presidential debates I am forced and compelled to listen to the news medias take on the event. My husband and I have discussed the role of a Vice President, and it is our joint opinion that not since it was rumored that Vice President Johnson was a part of the Kennedy assassination plot has the position of the Vice Presidency been more important. Age and health of a sitting President was a consideration in our discussion. We heard a news commentator say, “We (Americans) are not electing a Vice President.” Both my husband and I disagree with that statement, but we acknowledge the fact that there is probably some real truth in the fact that most Americans do not feel that they are voting for a Vice President. But should we vote for a Vice President? We both think that it is an important consideration. Why has nobody confronted Cheney on his call to shoot down a commercial airliner on September 11, 2001? It has been reported in the news media that he claimed to have Presidential authority, and President Bush has skirted this issue as well by neither confirming nor denying that he gave Cheney the authority to call the ball. We both have serious questions concerning Cheney’s motives for giving the order to shoot down a commercial airliner. We wonder if his shoot down order was motivated by a sincere concern to protect Americans or save his own ass? We really wish somebody would have asked publicly and demanded an answer. This business with the flu vaccine is serious, and I question why is the bulk of the vaccine manufacturing is outsourced to other countries. The media has said that it is not a highly profitable venture, and that vaccine manufacturing is high risk for litigation. Again, it is all about the money, and less and less about the welfare of the people. It is a dangerous situation. The outsourcing of American manufacturing has destroyed the manufacturing base in America, the same manufacturing base that allowed America to protect itself during WWII. I read yesterday that China is experiencing major power outages due to their poor electric power infrastructure. It was stated that without electrical power the outsourced manufacturing is basically null and void as their labor may be cheap but their ability to actually perform and produce was never examined. Good JOB, and yes I am being sarcastic. The serious situations concerning America from the war in Iraq to the economy is taking a toll on my ability to concentrate on writing much more than more political commentary that nobody will read or listen to. I feel that it is un-American not to be concerned, interested and an active participant in deciding the fate of our country. I guess I could turn off the television and refuse to listen to these irritating political goings ons, but then I would be guilty of apathy – and I am not complacent or apathetic. I refuse to be distracted by my own anger and frustration with the political process, such that it is. I think that generally Americans are being jerked around. I am also beginning to wonder why anybody would want to be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. |
| October 5th, 2004 Today is Bill Day! I don’t know if everybody else operates the way I do, I doubt it. I will tell you how inflation has affected me. My electric bill actually seems reasonable. As for my other utilities, I pay more for the outgoing water (they call it sewage, I call it steeling) than I do the incoming water into my home. Explain that to me. Well considering I buy bottled water to drink I think that the water people are telling me that they know that the water is almost worthless, and definitely not fit to drink. My gas bill is very reasonable. The highest bill I have is my cable, and I have basic cable. No fancy boxes, no pay per views, nothing extra and somehow it still cost almost $50.00 dollars a month. I have been living in Houma since before cable. My first cable bill was $12.00 a month and that included taxes. We have DSL access through the cable company, and it sucks, and that costs almost $45.00 dollars a month. Ask me why I am always on dial-up. I wish my husband would stay home long enough to finally figure out that the DSL connection from the cable company is overpriced. I watched the Vice Presidential debates. I fell asleep. I am tired this evening and the words are not flowing. I did not finish anything I started today except paying the bills. Bill Day is depressing. Just about the time I am feeling secure because there is a little money in the bank. BAM. If there was a way to get a one or two-month reprieve from paying bills, I just might be able to save a few dollars. I will tell y’all this – I don’t need money, only the people I owe do! I wish I could be a governor of a State. I swear I think basic necessities should not be an on going expense, and especially not a FOR PROFIT venture. Yes, I think water, electricity, and gas should be part of the benefits of just being on the face of this earth. The people who discovered this stuff are long dead. It was all born out of mankind’s needs. Now we are slaves to what was once something that would make our lives easier. My life is not easier simply because of the existence of fire and water – not in my lifetime. Today, I can’t walk around and find two rocks to bang together to make fire, or find two sticks to rub together. Everybody has yardmen that throws all that stuff away. The land fill use to be free, we use to call it the city dump – well the same people that sell the water must be running the city dump because it sure cost an arm and a leg just to throw stuff away. I wonder what the cave men did with their trash, or ever worried about how much it costs to make garbage. I am absolutely sure that cave men didn’t worry about the cost of garbage. Why? They were busy discovering fire and how to use it so someday in the future somebody would come along and be able to charge me for it. Well I just made my word quota. Discovered I am LATE. I can’t wait to come back and read this and see if it makes any sense at all tomorrow Good night. |
| October 4th, 2004 Oh, what a day I have had today. My husband didn’t get home till shortly after seven o’clock this evening. He was offshore being shuffled around between three different rigs fixing their communication systems. Most of the problems are actually nothing much more than operator error. He had to explain things like, “If you want to talk to the other rig it would be advisable that you both be on the same channel.” And I am especially fond of his having to instruct a barge master, or a tool pusher that it is first necessary to turn the system on, if they want it to actually do what it is suppose to do. It seems that technology is way ahead of some of the old men of the sea, even though most of these guys are younger than my husband. I can definitely relate. My better half is the highly technical one, while the majority of my duties require me to be more of an idea person, a gopher, chief cook, laundress, and all around get-it-done-while-he-is-at-work person. My husband is a workaholic. I was once, so I totally recognize the symptoms. My husband is much better at time management than I am, but I have CRS (Can’t Remember S*&t), and he doesn’t. I am doing really well just remembering to post my required daily entries into this journal. Since the Olympic Decathlon officially started four days ago, I am very proud of the fact that I am right on track with my daily entries, and the first of the Decathlon events. Since I am talking about the first Decathlon event, let me add that the poetry form, Pantoum, is seriously challenging for an already confused individual such as myself. The Pantoum requires that you repeat lines in each of the following stanzas that are in the preceding stanza. And of course, repeating one’s self is considered to be a symptom of mental incompetence. But the poet people don’t stop with just repetition. Oh no! There is a twist in the last stanza of a Pantoum that requires that the first line of the preceding stanza is the first line of the last stanza. The second line of the last stanza is the third line of the first stanza. The third line of the last stanza is third line of the preceding stanza, and finally the last line of the last stanza is the first line of the first stanza. I wrote the preceding paragraph in hopes that the Olympic Decathlon judge, whose job it is to actually read this entry, would experience a little of my pain. Of course, The Train Contest is not restricted to just Olympians, so it is my hope that the pain and suffering is wide spread. I hate to suffer alone. I had some computer problems today. I was delighted when my husband came home, because I knew that he could fix it. Well, it was not really a technical glitch. Seems in trying to remember everything I need to do for the Olympic Decathlon, I forgot to pay the DSL connection bill. Of course, if the DSL people had tried to call, all they’d have gotten is a busy signal. I also keep a back-up dial up connection because I just like having options. Now, I just wish there was a cure for -- CRS! |
| October 3rd, 2004 I am concerned about the campfires. Not for any particular reason, it is just a concern. The poetry challenge WAS very difficult and required considerable research. I am delighted that I have until October 8 to post it. I want to take a break and then go back and read what I wrote. I did all three prompts due to the fact that I did not see anywhere in the rules that we were to just pick one of the three given. I guess I could have email or posted somewhere and asked, but I view myself as a writer. The Olympic Decathlon is a READING and WRITING challenge. The Milkman said early on that this is not supposed to be easy. I am still finding that my weekend non-existent schedule is a bit of a problem. I am much more organized Monday through Friday. And will somebody explain to me why I decided I needed to rearrange my dinning room this month, not to mention this weekend? If somebody else is not screwing up my well-laid plans, I find I am doing it to myself. This is definitely a no win situation. My husband got called out to work today. That is a bummer. He works all week long and I look forward to our weekends. I need to eat something. I have been on this computer almost all day working on the three Pantoum poems. I really want to win. I promised myself to put my very best effort into each and every writing event that the Decathlon offered. I don’t believe that I can win all of them, but I can dream. My granddaughter spent the night last night, and today I had the opportunity to work with her on her knitting. The older she gets the more fun she is to be with. I am delighted that she is interested in knitting. My daughter never had the patience for it. My oldest son just called and wanted to borrow more money. I have a check that he wrote me for the last money that he borrowed. He kept asking me to wait to cash it, well over ninety days passed, and now the check is no good. Now he wants to write me another check but does not want to include the money that he borrowed the last time. I don’t know why it bothers me to not loan him money when I already know he does not pay me back what he owes me. I know it is the right thing to do, but right don’t mean easy. The problem is I have to take a hard line with my kids because all four of them have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will take advantage of me. They all act like I owe them something. I love my granddaughter more than I ever imagined that I could and the fact that she takes me as I am and does not try to take advantage of me is so refreshing. She asks for nothing. The time I get to spend with her is a joy. It’s thundering outside and starting to rain - HARD. My husband is offshore, and I am home alone. Do I need to say that I am not a happy camper? Wish my granddaughter were here! |
| October 2nd, 2004 It is such a relief to be an empty nester. I look forward to the peace and quiet. I had read so much about how traumatic it is for some mother’s when all their children grow up and leave home, and now I find none of it to be true in my case. Are all the women crazy? Obviously! Does that mean that I don’t love my children as much as they loved theirs? NO. I am just rediscovering ME, and I know how many years I put everything that I wanted to do when I wanted to do on hold for the sake of my family, and that is perfectly acceptable and maybe even proper. To my way of thinking, now I have even more “that is ME” to put into some kind of perspective. Life is truly amazing! The Campfire thing is proving to be a little confusing for me, which is typical as I am confused and confounded by most everything that I have never done before. I embrace and welcome new challenges, and that is a good thing because it seems they just never quit presenting themselves. I do this to myself; it is nobody else’s fault, but that is exactly why I entered the Olympic Challenge last year and the same holds true for this year. I would have NEVER tried to create a Campfire if it was not part of the Olympic Decathlon. [My fingers ache to insert emoticons, BTW.] Seems I have discovered that there is a very big difference between a word count and a character count. The problem is with the 1100 maximum word limitation in the Olympic Decathlon Campfire. It will be fine; it is just awkward. And I am very wordy. I had to go buy a new shower curtain yesterday. That should be a simple chore, but not for me. Nothing is ever just easy for me. Of course I had been looking for the same identical shower curtain that I already had, but it seems that the powers that be don’t make that pattern anymore. So, I am forced to choose from the current selection of shower curtains available on the store shelves. I didn’t really want a new shower curtain, but the damn things do eventually have to be replaced, and mine was long overdue. So I finally made a buying decision, and begrudgingly paid the cashier at Lowe’s, of all places, the twenty-one dollars and change for the curtains plus the nine dollars and change for the matching shower curtain hooks. Of course that also required that I buy a new matching bathmat. Luckily I found one on sale for ten dollars. Then as I typically do I indulged in impulse buying and spent another thirty dollars. Shopping sucks. It costs way too much money. That should have been the end of the three-week shower curtain ordeal, but you have to remember this is ME we are talking about. Nothing is ever easy or simple. When I got home the shower curtain that took me three weeks to decide to buy was NOT in my bag. After contacting the store, explaining the problem, waiting for the manager to call me back an hour later, and being totally disgusted with the whole ordeal – the manager called and to my amazement Lowe’s agreed to replace the shower curtain and matching hooks with no qualms. It’s a very pretty shower curtain, but I really don’t think that it should be that difficult to acquire one, but evidently it can be. Word count: 600 Whew |
| October 1st, 2004 I watched the Presidential debate tonight with great interest, and truly did not have a predetermined outcome ingrained in my mind. I wanted to see these two men address the issues side by side. President George W. Bush has scared me for a very long time, but I have not had much of an opportunity to hear much from Senator John Kerry. I have grown very weary of hearing from their spokesmen, so I saw this first of the three scheduled debates as an opportunity to see the men in action, not tethered to their political handlers. In my humble opinion, President Bush demonstrated his arrogance by not seeming to be comfortable with being questioned about his actions and positions on the situation in Iraq. Bush continually repeated himself, and he sounded unprepared for this debate. I truly believe that Bush is a man who thinks Americans need a King. I do not say this lightly, and I do not intend it to be just another ugly slur. For a long time now I have felt that George W. Bush has lost touch with the American people. He has forgotten what the true definition of the word DEMOCRACY is. I think that there are a great number of people that serve in the Bush administration that are also misinformed about DEMOCRACY, none more than Bush, but misinformed just the same. I have the feeling that THE PEOPLE matter less and less to the current administration. I am so impressed with Senator John Kerry’s presentation of himself tonight. I had no idea of what to expect, so I was very pleasantly surprised. Bush did exactly what I expected him to do – MORE OF THE SAME. So, if I had to call the ball, I would gladly say that Kerry scored this round. NOW, ABOUT OLYMPIC DECATHLON 2004 I am so excited about being in the Olympic Decathlon this year; especially after all of the confusion I had last year. I also don’t foresee having any of the traumatic personal problems that I faced last year. I have some reservations about some of the up coming events, but that is mostly because I truly did not enjoy the Scavenger Hunt last year. It was too easy to cheat. Everybody’s answers were posted directly into the forum, and after the first couple of entries were posted I could have compiled a complete list with all the correct answers, but that would have been CHEATING. I don’t cheat, and I saw no point in continuing. I am not saying anybody else did compile their answers from other Olympian’s entries in the Scavenger Hunt, but even the Milkman has mentioned that some people tried to get ahead by finding out about the various contests in advance. I know that I like the Campfire idea. It will be interesting, and I believe that the most difficult part will be NOT going over the word limit. I can appreciate the need for a word limit, too, since we can be a gabby bunch of people. So far so good, but of course I really did think that there were thirty-one days in September, too. So God only knows what can happen from now till the end of October. |
| May 31st entered on May 31st, 2004 Who-Rah!!! I made it to the end of the Olympic Writing Challenge. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the ten Writing.Com members who took their time and efforts to provide this challenge. Oh, yes I do. I honestly already feel like I have won. This Olympic Writing Decathlon was a contest that enabled me to prove to myself that I could start and complete a writing project. It has not been simple and easy. I have struggled with real life distractions that almost proved to be fatal in my efforts to complete the Olympic Writing Decathlon, and the point is that I finished. I actually quit once, but couldn’t due to lack of technical knowledge, so I had to continue. I spent the whole first week before this Olympic Challenge started trying to comprehend the rules, how to make a book, and how to put the Pink Decathlon image in that book. In a moment of emotional weakness, I found myself giving in to some of my life’s momentary dramatic and overwhelming circumstances, and I fired off an “I quit” email to the Milkman. This is probably one of the first times whereby my ignorance of technical procedures proved to be an asset instead of a hindrance. And even before that moment when I sent the Milkman that email, I had to break through the emotional baggage of feeling defeated when I was not able to provide an entry for all of the ten related contest activities when they were presented, and just keep going with the Daily Writing Challenge of producing at least 500 words a day. Even when I got behind in my required daily journaling, I found the will to endure. This single, simple memory of staying the course this entire month of May 2004 will serve me well in future writing challenges. In other words, I am so glad that I was too stupid to know how to quit. I think too that by completing this Olympic Decathlon Challenge I will fare better this year than I did last year in the NanNoWritMo challenge that I think will again present itself in September. I also know that I have this Olympic Challenge has helped me to increase my typing speed. I even think that my spelling is improving from the daily exercises. When I am typing in Word now, I have noticed as the month of May has slowly come to an end that the automatic spell check does not have to interrupt me near as often as it usually did. I survived. I am relieved that the month of May is over. I am encouraged by my mere participation in this Olympic Challenge. I sincerely hope that other contestants have come away with a personal sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in their own struggle to meet the daily and weekly challenges that were provided to us “Olympians”. And I want this journal entry to be a heartfelt thank you to all the judges for their time and energy. I certainly hope that there will be future Olympic Writing Decathlon Challenges (just not any time too soon in the immediate future). What an emotional rush this has proven to be for me. I look forward to now having time to read some of the other Olympic Writing Decathlon journals. My coffee pot is empty, my word limit has been met, and I am now going to have brunch with my husband. |
| May 30th entered on May 30th, 2004 Well what do you know? It appears that I am at least going to finish the Olympic Writing Decathlon Challenge after all the grief and trouble I have had this month of May. First I signed up and then realized I had no clue how to put an image anywhere. So I quit. Then I figured it out, and stayed signed up. If any one has been reading this journal you have to know that just doing this has been a challenge. My real life interferes with the life I want to have. So, yesterday I sent the Milkman an email that I had to quit and that I had put my journal as private, for my eyes only. Well this morning I get a return email that states: you haven't lived up to the challenge please self-delete yourself from the group as I want to accurately tabulate all of the points to announce the winners as soon as possible. If you have stayed with the challenge please DO NOT reply to this message or POST in the Decathlon forum. Here is the problem folks, I did not know how to self-delete myself from the group. I know that may sound like a stupid reason, but it is in fact the one and only true reason or excuse that I have for not quitting. So I decided that it was easier just to make my journal public again, count myself lucky to be alive and still on Writing.Com, and get my journaling done and up to date. With this entry I am now current. I actually feel much better about completing this Olympic Decathlon Writing Challenge; even with some of the assignments and contest opportunities I was not able to do for one reason or another than I realized that I would. One more journal entry this evening and I am done. I have made it to the end. And those words that the Milkman wrote, “you haven’t lived up to the challenge” just about made me crazier than I usually am. “Too late to quit now” is the single thought that drove me to completing this journal after I received the Milkman’s email. In a few months I will revisit this journal and reread everything that I have put out there. I don’t know how I will feel about it; I just know that I am so ready for the month of May to be over. I know that I have learned some things about myself, and that is always good. At this moment I am preparing to go to New Orleans. My husband needs a computer part and I really need to eat at Poncho’s Mexican Buffet. I have been eating there for over 25 years. Have I bothered to tell y’all before now that I am a creature of habit? I don’t like change. I am also not very fond of rules either. Basic rules are okay, I understand the Ten Commandments, but complex, extremely detailed type rules just drive me up the wall. Have y’all every read Robert’s Rules of Order? Yea, those kinds of rules for Parliamentary procedure make me just want to throw up my hands and scream and shout, but when I really think about it, it is those very rules that make me crazy that keep me from having to scream and shout (or shoot). Just more thoughts—anybody still think that I am not crazy? Please stand up and send me an email. And no, I am not kidding except about the stand up part maybe. Have a wonderful day. Only one more entry and I will be finished in more ways than one. Yahoooooooooooooooooo. |
| Saturday, May 29th entered May 30th, 2004 I talked to my brother late Friday night, seems that he has had some very serious heart problems that he has not wanted to tell me about. He is 48. His heart is functioning at 10 percent. Regardless of what I know about heart conditions ten percent is not good. He told me that he is on his third heart doctor and the pacer thing won’t work. He needs a heart transplant. My brother got accepted into medical school, which is a feat all by its self. He dropped out and we have never really discussed why beyond my thinking that he was making a big mistake. We were both young. I quit college the first time too. So who am I to tell him anything? We are not really close, but we do talk. I don’t want my brother to die. As far as I am concerned I am the oldest, and after mom and dad it should be me. Actually I am a coward when it comes to people dieing. Maybe coward is not the right word, but death does not sit well with me. Other people seem to take it in stride and consider it a natural process, whereas I just get even crazier when someone I know and love dies, or talks about the possibility of their dieing. I believe in God, but I still wonder if we are all just some kind of biological organism that crawled out of the seas millions of years ago and when we are done, we are just simply done. Oh, I have had people argue with me and tell me that I cannot possibly believe in God and make the statement that I just made. Well, I know that I believe in God, but everything else, and I mean absolutely everything else is still a mystery to me. I read science journals, I read archeological journals, and so much more, but I am never more amazed than when I look at a time line of human civilization and realize how far man has come from when we were suppose to have crawled out of the sea or when Eve got Adam to bite the apple. Does anyone realize how young air conditioning technology is when compared to the grand scheme of things? And there are so many other technologies that are even more recent. Now, think about all of that and then realize that even the most advanced futuristic movies depict mankind or alien kind as warring creatures, regardless of which piece of dirt their on hurling through space. Now think about stem cells. What a marvelous scientific discovery. Then realize that George W. Bush is leading or following the extreme right and has limited the possible future discoveries that could come of stem cell technology, yet now he leads our country on a Nation building quest on foreign soil. Our sons and daughters are being put in harms way all around the globe. The Veterans Administration does not even have a computer system that can identify who is a veteran and who isn’t for medical purposes, but we got bombs, big bombs. We do not have stem cell research facilities that are government funded or a national computer system to track veterans in need of medical services due to the injuries that they received in service to their country – but we got bombs. If any of y’all reading this thinks that it is not connected or that I am ranting all I can say is that ignorance is bliss, isn’t it? And I still am not ready for my brother to cross over, as they say. |
| Friday May 28th entered May 30th, 2004 My camper quest is delayed today just like all my entries into the Olympic Decathlon. The District Attorney called early this morning and told me that my daughter would be out of jail by noon. I was instructed to stay by the phone and wait for her to call me to come pick her up. I have no memory of what I did between 8:00 am and noon; all I know is that the phone never rang. I was getting worried. At 1:30 Friday afternoon she called. Seems that they did give her one phone call, but she did not know she was suppose to dial “9” to get an outside line – so she screwed the pooch on that too. Seems she walked home. The jail is about five or six miles from where she lives, so it was a healthy walk. She is young and it certainly would not hurt her. I am at least glad she called to let me know so that I was no longer tethered to the phone. My daughter told me that she had no clue that she was getting out. She was scared that they were moving her to another pod, as they are called. She said when the deputy took the handcuffs off; she was not going to hang around to give them time to change their minds. I just hope that this will deter her from committing any more crimes for the rest of her life. I felt so much relief, and I thanked God for his divine intervention. Yep, after nearly a week of trying to reason with the people that make up the legal system in our community, and after getting to the point that I was asking myself who I would need to kill, I finally got on my knees and turned it all over to God. Obviously my methods, arguments, and reasoning were not working. Amazing as it may sound, within 24 hours of giving it to God my daughter was out of jail on a personal recognizance bond. The original $55,000 bond that they wanted just disappeared. Now, mind you my daughter had even paid an attorney $600.00 and he had done absolutely nothing except call me and fuss at me for talking to all the District Attorneys, councilmen and women, and anybody else that would listen to my plight. The point is my daughter is out of jail, and they are offering her a program called “PTI” that will require community service, fines, probation and some other stuff but she will not have a felony on her record. This means that she will actually be able to get a job. My only hope is that this will be the end of her stealing days. I know that my relationship with my daughter is forever changed by her actions. Tough love still sucks. I really believe it was harder on me than on her. She really did not like being in jail. I think that it is a good thing that she did not like being in jail. I hope that she hated being in jail enough to forever avoid doing anything that could possibly cause her to have to go back to jail. If that last statement is true, then all my misery was well worth it in my opinion. |
| Thursday, May 27th, entered May 30th, 2004 I continue on my quest for a camper. Of course I realize very quickly that this is not the perfect time of year to be shopping for this piece of gear, as it is the height of the season. I am like one of those turtles that they say will not let go until there is lightening or thunder or something. I want another place to live that is not big enough for my kids. I want another place to live that if my kids find out where I am I can just hook up and drag house, home, and hearth down the road and find somewhere else to stay till the kids find me there too. I am on a mission. Reason and logic be damned. Limited finances be damned. Ah, but the satellite Internet connection costs a bundle. Okay, I can write with pen and ink like I use to do. That truly sucks. What I need is more money. If y’all have not shopped for a camper trailer, you just really should for the experience. As a matter of fact, I would advise you to shop with no intention of buying one, but only to familiarize yourself with what is going on in the industry. Do your Internet search, and familiarize yourself with prices over the Internet, and then go out into the real world and shop. Camper sales people are insane, and the sticker prices could possibly cause you to have a heart attack if you are not careful. I now understand why all those campers and motor homes are parked in driveways and never move. The people that bought them are paying through the nose for them. They can camp out in their driveways across America, but they can’t afford to go anywhere when you pay $20,000 or $30,000 dollars for a recreational vehicle. It must be a form of insanity. So, today I decided I needed to alter my plans. I am still going to get a camper, but I am going to have to wait for the height of the season to pass so prices will be more flexible. I am also not going to buy a new one either, forget new. A new camper is like a new car; it is an asset that losses thousands of dollars of value the moment you sign your name to the financing agreement. So therefore a new camper is out of the question. Ideally I still need more money. I like the land yachts. I want a little Honda car that gets 48 miles to the gallon that I can tow behind my land yacht. I will need an Internet high-speed satellite connection and television connection. The land yachts come with a generator the campers do not. I do not want to be forced to find a campground to stay in. The idea of being trailer trash appeals to me in an odd sort of way. I think that it is my belief that nobody expects anything from people labeled as trailer trash. |
| Wednesday May 26th entered on Sunday May 30th, 2004 Today I was sort of busy with non-routine type things. My husband’s truck went into the shop for a brake job yesterday and they did not finish as promised. I picked him up in the town South of Houma where he works Tuesday evening, and of course I brought him to work Wednesday morning EARLY. We left here about 7:00 am. He surprised me by stopping at Shoney’s for us to have breakfast together. My husband normally does not eat breakfast during the week. He says it slows him down. I don’t understand how anything can slow him down with that gallon of coffee he drinks every morning. I did not feel like going home. Maybe some of you folks with teenagers will understand that last statement maybe you won’t, I don’t know. All I do know is that I really did not want to go back to the house. So I rode around all morning till eleven o’clock and went back to where my husband was working to make sure he had a way to go to lunch. He had his truck back so it really was not necessary for me to be there but we had lunch at Shoney’s again. I honestly think that we could live next door to Shoney’s and my husband would not need me any more. I do cook, and I cook rather well most of the time when I am in the mood, but I find that my family just wants three “hots and a cot”. I have gone on strike a week at a time, and nobody notices or cares. There is always McDonald’s, Shoney’s, or Burger King. Yuck! When I cook sometimes they quiz me about what is the occasion because they see it as being kind of fancy. I think food should be appealing, attractive, appetizing, or anything besides just a lump of meat on a plate. I guess I am still in a slump of sorts. May has been an unbearable month. One more day and this Olympic Decathlon thing is over with, the month of May is over with, and hopefully things will be better in June. We will see. I am playing catch up as I have been most of the month of May. Writing is not the challenge for a writer. Staying focused and not letting all the other stuff get to you is the challenge. My husband really does not know how to take vacations. So while I was out riding around to avoid going to the house I thought about how to take an un-vacation. I decided that we needed a camper. I had visions of parking it under huge shade trees beside a body of water somewhere, anywhere but here. So the hunt began. I found a place beside a lake, with hook-ups and the rates are very reasonable. It is only five minutes from my husband’s employment. Well, as it turns out I needed to make reservations two years ago. Well not exactly, but almost. Seems I can park a camper there Monday through Friday, but the weekends are booked up for the next two months. Okay, a little disappointed but still doable. |
| Tuesday, May 25th, entered Wednesday, May 26th, 2004 I did absolutely nothing today, and it felt wonderful. I did not think. I did not write. I totally detached myself from everything. I slept almost all day. Sleep is good. Sleep gives the mind and body time to heal. Sleep gives the spirit time to renew itself. There are many battles that we all must face. There is the eternal battle between good and evil. There are the battles between the flesh and the spirit. There are moral and spiritual battles. There are financial battles being waged daily between retailers, advertisers, marketers, and our restraint as consumers. Then the powers that be devised credit cards, debit cards, and reverse mortgages. Before the 1950’s and the advent of Savings and Loans, a home mortgage was relatively unheard of. Homes costs between $5,000 and $15,000, and our grandparents saved furiously to own their homes – The American Dream. Real Estate is the last bastion of real American wealth. Yet, there are no more local banks that protect the local man and his money. Visa and MasterCard have out paced American Express and Dinner’s Club. Today, everything is about the almighty dollar. It is about the haves and the have mores. Why do we need cars and trucks that cost $30,000 and $40,000, and more? Cars and trucks are a depreciating asset. Our grandparents knew that, and some of our parents knew that. What is it that makes us think that we need a new vehicle with that kind of price tag? I can remember when cars and trucks were made out of real metal with real metal bumpers. I saw a news clip a few days ago where a four foot alligator actually took a bite out of a cars bumper. I have seen commercials lately that boost about how the side panels deflect objects because things literally bounce off of the plastic surface, which caves in when struck. How many major automotive recalls have we endured from major car and truck manufacturers over the last ten or fifteen years? Cars and trucks are a DEPRECIATING ASSET. Cars and trucks are being made cheaper and cheaply and we are being duped into paying more and more for them. The sale of these overpriced cars and trucks is being perpetrated by yet another crime on our society. The misleading and very often nearly criminal financial arrangements offered on these overpriced, cheaply manufactured cars and trucks by the very same manufacturers that produce the cars and trucks that will be eventually recalled. I admit that it is very unlikely to get enough of the American people to agree on anything that will actually produce any change. I think that I just like saying that I told you so. Yep, this little Southern woman with enough of her own personal problems is taking the time to put it down in black and white for all eternity for all to see that I TOLD YOU SO. We are all being duped. We are allowing ourselves to be robbed. Well not me, I never buy a new car. And it is not because I can’t either. I buy a perfectly good 5 or 6 year old car of truck every 4 or 5 years, and guess what? Every pre-owned vehicle I have purchased I have saved thousands and thousands of dollars, because of all the maniacs out there that buy a new vehicle every year or two. Thank you all for that – and you know who you are. |
| May 21st entry written and entered on May 22nd, 2004 I came very close to chucking out this journal and all my entries yesterday. I am in a very bad mood. My mood is considerably more than probable depression. My life resembles a rat race. I am in a maze running around in circles. I truly accomplish nothing that will make a difference one way or the other. My thoughts and opinions really don’t matter to anyone. Nothing I say counts for anything. I am tired and disgusted with too many of the people that I share occupancy with on this piece of dirt hurling through space. I wish that I could delude myself into believing that anything I say or do would make a difference. I get paid, and paid very well to create classes to teach the less fortunate how to survive in these hard times. I provide real practical advice that could possibly help people with low and fixed incomes find ways to spend less of their money on needs so that they can have more of their hard earned money to spend on their wants. Does anybody listen? No. Well maybe, just maybe one or two will. God knows I hope so. I do know that you can lead a horse to water but that you cannot make it take a drink to save your life. I also know that the poor will always be with us – and I am not talking about the financially poor either. Poor souls, poor attitudes, and poor spirits – so many people looking for the easy path. There are no easy paths. We must all work it out for ourselves. I am so sick and tired of hearing it said, “That is just the way it is.” I totally disagree. People have the ability and the right to change whatever it is that is not right, fair, or just. For the most part I find that most people are too busy helping themselves to be willing to help anyone else. It is a sad state of affairs when all most of what we do is just about ourselves. Judge not least ye be judged. Who am I to think that I know what is good for other people? Who am I to think that my beliefs about what the people who make up our government are doing is going to make one iota of a difference now or ever? Who am I to think that I can be a published writer when I let so much of what is currently going on affect the way I feel? Who am I? I just don’t know anymore, and that is why I really believe that I need to chuck this journal. I want to devote my time and efforts to learning to write well, and learn to write well enough that someone will actually pay me to do it. I am beginning to feel foolish, very foolish for even trying. I think that I like writing for the Writer’s Cramp because it gives me an assignment. Give me a subject and I will take it and run with it. As for this journal the instructions were simply to write 500 words a day. I can do that with no problem, but nobody gave me a topic so therefore I am all over the place. I have no sense of purpose or direction. I told someone on here the other day that I have no control over what I write. They, of course, disagreed with me. When I am given a specific topic I can sometimes manage to stay on topic, sometimes I misinterpret the topic. I never really know from one day to the next which current event is going to end up getting my attention. For example, I woke up the other day and read about Writer’s Digest not including Writing.Com on its list of The Best 101 Websites for Writers. Well that certainly got me going. I created a forum, fired off letters to Writers Digest, and tried to inspire others to do the same. I truly imagined that some 10’s of thousands of Writing.Com users would do the same. Y’all can all stop laughing now! I even did the math. Seems like not even one fifth of the users of Writing.Com are interested in correcting this injustice. I am tired and disgusted. |
| May 20th entered May 21st, 2004 I am just tired. I am tired of everything, people, the government, my kids, my husband, this damn house, and even writing this journal for the Olympic Writing Decathlon. My age has nothing to do with how tired I feel. There is just so much self-serving propaganda and rhetoric going on in every global corner of this piece of dirt. And as unbelievable as it may seem even more propaganda and rhetoric than when the Vietnam War was going on and on and on and on. Seems impossible doesn’t it? I am tired of my life. I use to have so many friends, and now they are just gone. Everybody is so busy trying to make some kind of living that people and families just don’t have time for each other anymore. Of course I am a conspiracy theorist that believes that this too is a part of the Bush Administrations plan to conquer the world. We are all so busy trying to keep and maintain our current level of standards of living that we really don’t have time to be concerned with what our American government personnel are doing. From the President of the United States on down, every one of them is all just an employee. Think about it – American voters hired them to do a job. We hired them when we elected them to their current terms in office. What have they done for any of us lately? Don’t be sucked by this tax cut? The government’s Internal Revenue Service use to let us deduct credit card interest if you itemized your taxes; did anybody in the government ever explain just how much eliminating that deduction added to their piece of the pie? Of course not, but I know that some bean counter in the government can tell you exactly how much more taxes that it collects from the American people who are paying the extremely high interest rates. So this tax cut that Bush wants to take credit for is like a bribe? Oh, yes it is. And I love the tax deduction that the Internal Revenue Service gives us for each child; I ask you, is that all you spend raising a child these days? Of course not, it takes three or four times that amount just to feed, clothe, insure and entertain the future victims of the American tax system than is given us for taking on the responsibility of producing more tax payers for the American government. Oh, and don’t think that that $1,000.00 dollar child tax credit that Congress just made permanent adds enough to any body’s bottom line to make me think that our government officials have seen the error of their ways either. Does anybody else think like I do? Well, if there are people out there that think like I do then evidently there are not enough of us. I am still tired. I remember when the price of sugar almost doubled. The explanation was that there had been devastating weather that had reduced the world production of sugar. Okay, that explained the first year’s price increase. I will accept that explanation, but has any one noticed that in the ten or so years since that price increase because of the weather that the price of sugar has never gone back down. Then it was coffee that was claimed to be in short supply because of bad weather, ha, do you still believe the powers that be excuses about the weather being the reason for the cost increase in coffee? Now tell me what is wrong with this next scenario: American people were getting by just fine, and then we invaded Iraq. Oh, yes we invaded that country but that is another argument. Iraq is a country of great oil resources. Now, all of a sudden we, the American people, are suppose to believe and accept gasoline price increases due to the fact that the refineries cannot process enough oil into gasoline to meet the demand. Our government officials are making a bundle off the backs of the American people. And it appears that the majority of us are lapping up whatever self-serving lies and half-truths that any one with enough name recognition, power and wealth can throw at us. I don’t know about y’all but I am disgusted. I am tired, very, very tired. |
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